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Soul agreements are equally dark and light. The karma created between an abusive person and their victim. Two warriors fighting in a battle. A parent who did not want their child and the unwanted child. Lies, betrayal, control, neglect, inflicting pain on another, these happen every day and create karma in relationships.

Call it karmic debt or unresolved past experiences, the shadow side of soul agreements may have even more impact on your life than the light. Why? Because the wounds, incomplete business and unresolved experiences, leave a signature in your energy field that attract more of that energy until it is resolved or released from your soul records.

The shadow side of a soul agreement can be a simple as someone stealing your wallet. The thief creates an unresolved karmic debt, by taking what isn’t theirs. The injury to your sense of safety or power can mark your energy field in a way that calls-in other similar experiences. Like attracts like. Whether your energy is stolen or an object is stolen.

You may mentally and emotionally process the experience to heal, yet find that the unresolved trauma in your energy field continues to attract thieves or energy vampires. Both the karma with the thief and the soul memory need to be cleared, to reclaim your power.

In the realm of what your soul remembers but your mind does not, you carry layers of unresolved experiences. Here’s example of a shadow soul agreement that shows up as a daily challenge.

You work with a person who pretends to support your success but continuously undermines it behind your back. Through words that plant doubtful seeds with management, they poison your opportunities for advancement while smiling to your face and bringing you a birthday card. They have felt familiar to you from your first meeting and you experience conflicting sensations of love and hate toward them.

It maybe more than insecurity or competition that is at play. You have a soul agreement with this co-worker. What would you have “agreed” to in a prior life together that results in this behavior?

You may have agreed to show up to remind each other to own your power and this person is pushing you to own your power by challenging it. You may have had an unresolved conflict in a past life where you were competing for attention from parents or a lover, and they didn’t get the attention they needed, so they continue to compete with you. You may have undermined their power in a past life, so they are now retaliating to undermine your power.

You’ve participated in creating shadow soul agreements too. Whether intentional, unconscious, or accidental, these unresolved energies between souls outlast lifetimes, repeating the patterns in new experiences. You will recreate an experience in a different form until you learn the lesson it has for you.

Changing your habits, mental and emotional patterns are a big part creating new experiences. But releasing the energetic charge from the soul memory and updating your soul agreements set you free to complete the lesson.

Whether past life or present, shadow soul agreements are an opportunity to heal both the isolated incident and the layers of karma our soul carries with it in the present. You don’t have to keep repeating the lesson when you claim your power to release unresolved soul agreements.

People often ask me why I don’t “read” the future in my psychic work. I have a canned answer about us all having “freewill” that allows us to change our future. I believe this, but there is more. Thinking we can know what we “should” do or what is coming next is a way to try to feel in control and limits healthy possibilities.

Whenever I want to know what’s next, I see it as me trying to assure myself, be in control of the unknown. I wonder, “Why don’t I feel safe with the mystery of not knowing?” I may be afraid of failure if I make a poor choice, or attached to a specific outcome that I think will result in my happiness. My attachment to an outcome has narrowed the possibility of what can make me happy because when an alternate experience unfolds, I may not enjoy it even if it’s better than what I thought I wanted!

Believing we can know the future allows us to feel we are in control but it is actually a way of giving our power away. I think of the family who has planned a vacation to Hawaii. The reservations for hotel, flights, and specific tours are all scheduled in advance. The kids are going to be in surf lessons while the parents are on a dolphin sighting boat tour. But then something doesn’t turn out as planned. The tour bus taking them to the beach gets a flat. They are waiting on the side of the road for hours; sweating, hungry, feeling like their vacation is ruined. Disappointed because what they had envisioned for their holiday isn’t happening.

Beside them another couple is talking with two locals in a old truck that stopped to see if the bus driver needed help. The other couple accepts the invitation to walk down the road to a few houses and sit on the porch in the shade with coconut water, enjoying conversation. They make new friends and give up on the tour bus all together, walking a bit farther to a local’s beach to explore the tide pools. They have a better day than they ever imagined because they are open to the possibility of what the universe offers rather than staying attached to their vision of how the future should have looked.

Like the more adventurous couple, we claim our power by trusting our intuition to guide us in the moment. There’s only power in the present. In the present we have options, choices that direct our life toward either fulfillment or disappointment. Disappointment is rooted in wanting something that doesn’t happen.

Making plans and having dreams are some of the best parts of being human. Allowing our intuition to be our life tour guide is where the magic comes in. When we surrender to the mystery, our journey’s take the most remarkable turns! I have no interest in knowing the future because I want to be surprised by life’s infinite possibility.

In the morning I remember, by the afternoon I’ve forgotten, in the evening I remember again. How many times I can remember and forget the same spiritual lesson? It helps to have a good sense of humor about it. Spiritual lessons are generally simple yet profound. We “get it” in an Aha! moment of recognition and breathe a sigh of relief in the awareness. Suddenly we feel unstuck, clarity or an opening to new possibility.

When we learn a new spiritual lesson, it often feels like we are remembering something we’ve long forgotten because we are. We are tapping into a universal truth that puts our earthly interpretation of life experiences in a healthier perspective. But it is easy to forget what we know when we get pulled into the prevailing energies operating around us, from demands at work or home, to our own impatience or fears of what might happen.

A coworker at my technology job is spiraling into worry, fear, and what-if scenarios during a phone call and it tosses the rest of my day out of alignment. Instead of feeling proactive and peaceful as I go through my work day I feel off-center and behind. Not even aware of what hit me. A client calls with an “I need it now” demand and I forget to put it in perspective with the rest of my responsibilities. Only to find myself stressed out and behind trying to keep up with my prior commitments and complete the new request. I started the day out remembering and forgot. It takes a disruptive activity to remind me again such as a phone call from a friend or stepping outside to get lunch.

One of my spiritual lessons is “what is meant to be will be” or the Divine Plan is at work regardless of how it appears to me. It doesn’t mean I like it. I may feel sad, disappointed, disheartened or betrayed by God, confused, even angry. It is hardest to accept when what occurs feels like a loss. The unexpected death of a loved one, failure at something I’ve been working extremely diligently to accomplish, or struggling with something that seemed easy many times in the past. When we try every avenue only to have each lead to a dead-end, the Divine is sending us a message. Our path is elsewhere.

Another personal spiritual lesson that I frequently forget and remember is regarding manifesting what I desire. When I ask for something, if I can let go of how it arrives, (the timing and what form it takes) I’m more likely to notice when the prayer is answered. Demanding a certain form causes us to miss out on so many opportunities. It’s in a sense trying to control the choices of others and the Divine. When we set an intention with control energy, such as “please help my current job give me a more flexible schedule, better pay, a boss who I feel is a mentor,” we are failing to allow flexibility in how it arrives. The job that offers these things may not be our current job but a new job that is more aligned with the request. When that other job shows up, we ignore the offer because we are stuck wanting our current job to change and match our desire.

The primary energies I’ve noticed get in the way of remembering my spiritual truths when I need them most are the fears and expectations of others. Taking 10 minutes to get grounded and set my energy with a short meditation in the morning improves my odds of staying centered in the midst of all the energies that flow through my life in a day. Meditation tools can be applied liberally here to re-center after we get thrown off, but that’s presuming we remember when it happens!

Judgment is a form of control used to move someone onto our agenda. The silent or embedded message it carries says, “Your choice is not acceptable to me, so choose something different that I’m comfortable with.” Energetically, judgment is an attempt to control our power center, the area just above the bellybutton (3rd chakra). It knocks us off-center to give the judge the power position. Or it allows them to hook into our energy and redirect it to their agenda.

Noticing how we respond to the energy of control attempts from judgments, allows us to strengthen our power by neutralizing the energy rather than getting knocked off-center by it. Some common responses to judgment are self-inquiry, seeking approval, self-sabotage or over achievement.

Self-Inquiry – The natural first response to someone’s judgment is self-inquiry. Is it true? Depending on the relationship we have with the person, we may just assume it’s true. This can translate into thinking something is wrong with us. Alternately it may be an opportunity to self-reflect, look at a dark corner in ourselves and decide if we want to keep feeding that aspect. The key indicator here is what our body is telling us, do we feel out-of sorts; is our stomach a bit anxious? Our body is our intuitions first barometer.

Seeking Approval – The most powerful people in our lives are the ones we love, second only to those in authority positions. When we love someone it is natural to want their approval. Even when we are just getting to know a person, we are determining their response to us and would like to be seen favorably. Judgment comes from unconscious or conscious beliefs that require change of another’s behavior to in order for them to receive approval. On the spirit level, when we alter what we know to be our truth in order to seek the approval of another, we are depleting our energy, giving a piece of ourselves away. This is the energetic hook that can become a chronic vampire of our life-force if we continue to deny our truth in order to please others.

Self-Sabotage – Feeling judged can cause us to feel angry. This anger is intended to show us our boundaries have been violated. When we are act from the anger we respond one of two ways, self-sabotage or over compensation. We may consciously say, “they are wrong.” But unconsciously believe the judgment and use our anger to propel us to some self-sabotaging behavior that proves them right. This is an extreme example of judgment throwing us off-center.

Over Achievement – Alternately we may feel the need to prove the judge wrong by excelling our efforts toward success in the direction we’ve chosen. This can be a form of competition energy or rebellion against the control. We have to demonstrate that we didn’t deserve the judgment through our success.

When we let judgment be the issue of the person judging by staying in our center, we retain our power. We don’t let the outside energy influence us to think less of our self, seek approval, self-sabotage, over achieve or throw us out of balance. We continue to be our true self rather than react in one of the other ways.

Reaction to judgment can actually be a catalyst that generates new experiences that we learn from whether through success or failure. But if we change our course to respond to another’s judgment we are still changing course, which means we are on a less direct path to the life we want.

Being aware of the energy behind judgment and practicing mediation to stay in alignment with our truth, helps us strengthen our ability to remain centered in the face of judgment and control. Then we are able to use the emotions we feel in response to being judged such as anger or uncertainty to set healthy boundaries, heal aspects of our self and even catapult us in a direction of our choosing.

What would it take for you to feel satisfied with your life? Fulfilled, as if everything that was happening was as you desired? A different job, a new or changed relationship, different living arrangement, better health, more money, a vacation, closer friendships, less work, time to follow your creative passion? The aspects of our lives that we feel at peace with don’t have to be perfect, but flow with ease. We don’t dwell on them, because for the most part we are getting what we want.

The areas of our life that aren’t fulfilling our needs are what we struggle with and notice. They translate to the false belief that something outside of us needs to change in order for us to feel at peace. When we believe this, we are giving our power away. There is an energy drain precipitated by cycles of thought, feeling and behavior that reinforce staying unsatisfied.

I think of Homer Simpson holding onto the soda can he’s been trying to steal from a vending machine, while emergency workers go to great lengths to try to extract his arm. We hold onto a certain vision of what we need to feel satisfied in a job, lover, etc. When Homer finally realizes, he doesn’t want the soda bad enough to give up other things in his life, he let’s go of the can and pulls his arm out of the machine. He’d created his own experience of being stuck in the machine by holding on to something that wasn’t designed to be his, at least not without him being in alignment with the system that would allow it to be his.

Everything we experience is designed to show us where we are in alignment or not. If we are attached to specific circumstances we “must have” to feel happy, a deeper look inside our Self will reveal what is out of alignment in our life, the misalignment creating a sense of lack. Are we making a decision based on financial fear to work too much or at a job we don’t like which limits our time and energy to create in other areas? Are we using busyness or addictions as a form of avoidance, so we won’t have to address the relationships in our life that are uncomfortable? Are we blaming work or a relationship for our suffering and disappointment? As long as we hold on to the belief that our happiness is contingent upon someone or something changing we will be unfulfilled and not find inner-peace.

Try this simple meditation to assist in creating a sense of peace in an area where you feel dissatisfied.

Visualize a bubble floating in front of you to represent the area in your life where you feel dissatisfied unfulfilled or stuck.

See a rose outside of that bubble, like a magic wand, it is there to draw out any energy from that bubble that is negative or fear based.

Watch as energies such as control, punishment, anger, anxiety, disappointment, fear, guilt, and shame move out of the bubble into the rose.

Once the bubble is free of these blocks, send the rose to a faraway place in your mind’s eye and let it dissolve with the intention that it causes no harm.

Now imaging a golden ball of light hovering above the bubble that represents the area of your focus for the mediation. Fill that ball of light with all of the positive vibrations (emotional energies) you would like to experience in this area of your life, such as: ease, grace, pleasure, fulfillment, joy, inspiration, flow, playfulness, support.

When the golden ball of light is full of good vibrations drop it into your bubble and see them become one.

You have shifted the focus in this area of your life from disappointment and lack to ease and flow with your intentions. Our habits pull us quickly back into old thought patterns, so revisit this visualization as often as you find necessary.

Personally, I find it a very challenging practice to let go of certain desires happening in the timeframe that I want. But whenever I hold onto the yearning for a different experience than “what is” I am less satisfied with my life. This doesn’t mean that I give up on my hearts desires and dreams. What it does mean is that I acknowledge that what I am experiencing right now is exactly as it should be. As difficult as it may feel, I trust that what I am experiencing is the universe speaking to me, to show me how I can get into greater alignment with myself.

Life throws us obstacles, bumps that come out of nowhere. The goal is to stay loose enough to adjust to the changes and centered enough to keep in control when the shit hits the fan. When the ground beneath us moves so fast that it’s hard to focus, we have to tune into our intuitive knowing, stay in that controlled out-of-control state.

Skiing and snowboarding teach us this flexibility. If you want to enjoy your journey downhill there’s no option but to be 100% present; aligned body-mind-spirit. Adjust to the shifting terrain, in the moment.

Our core (third chakra), center-of-gravity is in the bliss zone, balanced with velocity, snow and the contour of the mountain. When another skier crosses our path, a mogul, rock or tree faces us, we turn but we don’t turn permanently away from our intended path. We take a turn that avoids collision and another turn that returns us to our direction of choice.

In the moment we may recognize that our chosen path is not taking us in a direction that is going to bring us pleasure, success or good circumstances, so we permanently redirect our course. If we don’t foresee the need to turn or the obstacle throws us out of our center we’ll crash. Varying degrees of wipeout occur, depending on how tuned-in we were to our body and our surroundings.

We make graceful turns when we are centered in our truth, tuned-in to our surroundings and willing to adjust course when the flow points us in a different direction. Practicing mediation tools each day gives us this core strength when faced with any challenge. To do this we:

Take the time early in the day to clear our mind (sixth chakra) of the past and other people’s energy or agendas.

Call any of our scattered energy back to ourselves and visualized it filling every cell of our body.

Being grounded and saturated in our true essence is the bliss zone. It allows us to be present for the obstacles in life and to navigate them without feeling as much trauma. It feels aligned, peaceful and full of possibility. Taking responsibility for our life by owning our energy space teaches us that we can keep our focus yet be flexible enough to make graceful turns.

The word control has a bad rap. It’s associated with being anal, uptight, rigid, difficult and domineering. There are ways that control supports our health and others that block us from having joy. The two primary faces of control that we look at as we cultivate our intuitive awareness are:

1) Control that sets a clear boundary for our energetic space

2) Control of others, an intrusion into their energetic space

This first type of control helps us maintain “seniority” or “authority” over our energetic space. In activating this type of control we claim our true power to be the one calling the shots regarding our soul’s experience in this body. When we don’t exercise seniority in our psychic space (sixth chakra, center of head), other people’s energy and the energy of spiritual entities (beings without a body) can get in our aura and alter our emotions and perspective.

The presence of another’s energy in our psychic space, alters our clarity and drains our power. One indicator that someone’s energy is in your space, versus your own thoughts seeking them out, is a thought of them that pops into your mind while you are doing another focused activity. For example your mind is engaged in a project or conversation, thinking a specific line of thought then – bink – out of nowhere their name or a thought of them interrupts your thoughts.

It does no harm to move their energy out of your psychic space and give yourself room. This can be done using the simple visualization of their energy moving out of the center of your head into a bubble and sending that bubble of their energy back to them.

The second type of control has earned its bad rap, yet it is generated from our human nature, so no one is immune. From the earliest age we develop abilities to control and manipulate others to get our needs met. It’s a survival skill and comes from a place of innocence. As we grow-up, especially if our basic needs are not met, these skills may evolve into unhealthy controlling behaviors that intrude in other people’s energetic space. Often they show up in the guise of trying to help someone, provide advice or fix something we perceive is broken in them. Whenever the attempt to heal or help is engaged without the permission and consent of the person you have energy on, it becomes controlling and has negative results.

Most controlling behavior is subconscious. The controller perceives they are doing something positive to help the person they are trying to control. But it doesn’t feel that way to the person being controlled. Even if it sounds good, it still feels sticky-icky when help comes from a place of control. And the deeper motivation behind it is always to make the person controlling feel better. The out-of-control healer (OUCH) intrudes into our psychic space. This disrupts our clarity and undermines our personal power.

As an exercise in consciousness we can use our intuition to notice when we are pushing an agenda, not staying neutral to someone’s choices or pain. This usually results in wanting to fix their problem or take away their suffering. These are the points where we are most likely to invade their space with unwanted help, trying to make ourselves feel more comfortable by controlling our perception of their pain.

To develop our intuitive awareness we need to heal our use of control energy. This happens when we exercise seniority over our space and become conscious of our controlling behavior, shifting into a place of neutrality around another’s choices and experiences. Then we can truly help them in ways that honor their own spiritual seniority.

Snowboarding and skiing exercise the same muscles we use to access our intuition. Here are five ways that they can contribute clarity to other areas of your life:

1) Align with Your YES

Flying downhill at high speed with gravity as your motor, split second decisions are your power. Every turn, every choice of direction is an inner yes that aligns you with the mountain and puts a smile on your face. When your choices align with your yes they bring pleasure. Your intuition is validated and responds by informing you with increasing speed and accuracy.

2) Wipeout Prevention

To survive and stay injury free skiing you must pay attention and be present in the moment. The consequence of having your mind on anything but what you are doing is painful. The same is true when acting on your inner-guidance. Being distracted muddles your perception, often with painful results.

3) Give Your Analyzer a Break

Snowboarding connects you with your inner child. As a kid you didn’t spend so much time analyzing life. You were curious, playful and stuck your tongue out to taste the falling snow. Trusting your intuition requires that you approach life with child like openness to non-linear answers.

4) Read Your Surroundings

Navigation of the slopes includes maintaining awareness of the skiers around you. A portion of your consciousness is engaged in quickly reading what those in your path will do next to prevent collision. Your intuitive guidance is meant to help you navigate life through perception of how those around you are behaving. Then direct your life in a way that stays on course and avoids negative impact.

5) Move Forward in Whiteout Conditions

When there’s poor visibility, flat light or blizzard conditions, the way to stay injury free is to relax your body, trust its perception and response to the terrain. If you try to be in physical control rather than flow, your body will be stiff when you hit a bump, launching you in an unintended direction. When you strain to see what is not ready to be seen you meet whiteout conditions. Relaxation of control is required for supportive information to flow.

Sometimes my mind gets caught up in a question that I don’t have the answer for, it circles and circles the question seeking relief. As I was driving to Arizona from Colorado a couple of weeks ago, I had a lot of time to ponder a question that was stumping me. While struggling to find the answer, I became aware of my unconscious belief that God had the right answer and wanted me to act in accordance with it. I could not see past whatever blocks were in my mind to a clear choice for myself. I started to get frustrated.

At this point of frustration, I was reminded of something I’d seen my dog Bisbee do shortly after I adopted him as a two-year old. He’s a border collie programmed through generations of breeding to herd. He wants to roundup everything that moves, to keep it in control so he can feel at peace. On several of Bisbee’s first trips in a car he got manic about herding the cars that were driving by. He wanted to chase them so bad that more than once he wedged himself between the driver’s seat and the door with his nose firmly pressed in the crack of the dashboard and windshield, every muscle in his body rigid. I felt like Bisbee in my desire to have an answer to the question. My analytical mind was locked into the belief that there was a right answer with intense focus on trying to figure it out. I experienced the sensation of being pressed into a corner. I wasn’t getting anywhere. Finally, it dawned on me that there was no right answer. This question I was asking was really not about right or wrong, good or bad, but simply a choice regarding what I wanted to create with my life. The Universe or God didn’t really care whether I went this way or that. Either path would result in a set of experiences that would be my life.

As I drove through the wide open blue skies of New Mexico, I remembered the words of my spiritual mentor, Dawn Eagle Woman “hold a spacious field.” I started visualizing an expansive amount of space around my question and the people that would be impacted by my choice. I looked from horizon to horizon, consciously offering the question and each person involved as much room as I could physically see in the sky. An expansiveness that wasn’t attached to an answer but simply let the question exist.

When the analytical mind kicks in to respond to questions of the heart, it can push us into a corner and imprison us with the effort of trying to figure it out when there is no right answer. We may choose to act based on our vision of the life we are interested in experiencing or wait for the moment when we encounter an option that we easily respond to with yes. Engaging the mind in these situations is simply trying to control the unknown, a fruitless endeavor. Our intuition is present to guide us in questions of the heart and teach us the gentler path of freedom and trust in the natural flow.

This video message on wholeheartedness, presented by Brené Brown, contains precious information regarding our human experience. Proof that vulnerability or purposeful risk taking such as letting ourselves be “seen” authentically is the key to a peaceful existence from within!

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